Loud Mouth Brown Girl

In a few weeks, this site will have been up for nine years. For some reason, I thought it was ten, but it’s nine, which makes me happy. I want to tell you about who I used to be, before I started this site, so you know why I am writing this letter to you all today.

She was filled with light, love, and all things beautiful. But the boys and the men in her life didn’t like that. And so they did unspeakable acts of violence upon her, violating her to her soul.

Both these girls, ages ten and twelve, had been raped. Both of them. Neither of them asked for it, nor did they want it, but the boy in their life said, “The beatings will stop when you give in.” And so out of fear, she did what she was told, and when it was found out what happened, she was punished.

None of these girls remembered the girls who came before. Collectively, these girls chose to use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. The drugs were prescribed, just not to them. The drugs were forced down their throat, resulting in the loss of a child, which overshadowed the pain of everything that had come before it. Forced down her throat by a man who was shoved, not welcomed, into their life.

This girl, once a Lost Girl, was found by her father’s family. The family with roots as far back as those who were enslaved, and beyond that. Finally, even if she didn’t yet remember, she wasn’t alone in the world anymore.

This girl is free. She doesn’t know it yet, but nine years after this was taken, she’ll have written four books, done countless speaking engagements, and changed the game for women coming forward and sharing their stories.

She’s free, she doesn’t know it yet, but at long last, she is finally free of men who don’t take no for an answer. For the first time in thirty-three years, she was safe. And still, because she remembered everything finally, she couldn’t feel safe.

You see, she was primed for the gangsters by the cultists, who controlled the gangsters, and they worked hard to scare her into forgetting, into turning it into a nightmare that didn’t really happen.

But once you remember, you can’t stop remembering, and that’s when the trauma starts.

You see, in your life (as a gangster), you will hurt many people. People you may never know will wish the worst upon you because you hurt the ones you love.

I’m different. No one loved me enough to try to protect me, so the only thing you have to worry about when it comes to me is that for the last nine years, I’ve been preparing to go to war, while you’ve been watching from the shadows.

I’m different. I am not sitting idly by waiting for it to happen again, I am not struggling because I don’t have my basic needs met, I am navigating a world I’ve never lived in before.

A world where girls and women are free to say no, and where there are rules for people who ignore us.

I am not any of the girls that came before; I am all of them, and she is pissed.

So many of you stole so many parts of her when she would have given them to you if you had only asked.

It’s no wonder that today I am a non-binary, femme-presenting, a-sexual person who detests the sight of most men.

You can be the person who contributes to destroying people like me. That’s an easy thing to do when you have forty men willing to rape, beat, and torture girls for you.

Or, you can be the guy who breaks the generational curse that comes with gang life.

The new year brings us the opportunity to change our battles. You can fight to survive, or you can fight to be free of what community and society say you should be, or are.

I remember saying once, almost twenty years ago, “It gets better.” I was right then, and I am right now, but if you want it to get better, you have to – I cannot stress this enough – ask for help.

And don’t think you’re off the hook, Mayors Locke, Sims, and West; You were all over the news recently talking and complaining about affordable housing builds.

Well, let me tell you something: if you want people off the streets and out of the gutter, then you have to give them somewhere to go.

Not everyone is going to have the life skills to automatically adjust from street and gang-entrenched worlds into a healthy, stable living situation.

People in this world are struggling, and many of you in power got there by promising to help the most marginalized, or by stepping on communities that were helping folks, so you could be mayor.

The streets don’t forget who was there to offer hope, and who took it away, and they vote too. I was a child, and what happened to me was awful. But I’ve seen what happens when gangs and communities come together for the greater good.

I know damned well most kids want to play football or baseball or chase the stars, they don’t want to be hurting girls and abusing each other for the sadistic pleasure of adults who know better.

I had my mom and a lot of people in my new and old life to pull me out, but I had to throw up my hands and give it up to the universe, because I was in shit creek without a fucking paddle.

I know that at any time they can decide they’ve had enough of me being outspoken, and still, I do it because I have faith that I can contribute to ending the cycle of violence in British Columbia.

You can stay where you are, continue shooting up the place you grew up in, or you can go the other way and see what breaking cycles has to offer you.

The choice is entirely yours, but remember, no matter where you are…nothing lasts forever. Especially when you’re being chased by bullets.

Sending all my love to survivors of gang violence,

Devon J Hall, KrisyaOhana